The freezing of rents of old property, residential or commercial, is an injustice that grows bigger by the day. Though when enacted, at a time of an acute housing shortage caused by enemy air raids in World War Two, the rent law was well-intentioned, it has clearly outlived its purpose - and, worse, it is creating serious problems and grossly distorting the rental property market.
It is incredible that in the Year of Our Lord 2003, when the minimum wage is around Lm50 a week, one comes across properties of two or three bedrooms in prime localities, subject to the princely annual rent of half that figure.
But that is not all: these absurdly low rents - which mean, in effect, a substantial subsidy by the landlords to thousands of tenants running into millions of liri a year - are "inherited" by family members of the original tenant or by whoever decides to move in with him or her a couple of years before their death - at the same rent!
An owner or his heirs trying to dispose of such property, as long as it is occupied by tenants, might as well give it away for free - that is, as long as he finds someone willing to take it! Many owners or their heirs try selling their property to the tenants themselves out of sheer desperation, and often settle for a tiny fraction of the property's real worth.
But then the law perversely expects the owner to carry out "extraordinary repairs" at his own expense, and when it comes to property transfer through inheritance, then the tax is computed on the property's real - but completely intangible (as far as the heir is concerned) - worth.
Our politicians are full aware of the problem, but neither of the two major parties has done much about it (although, under a Nationalist administration, requisition orders were finally abandoned and, in June 1995, new rents entered into after that date were completely liberalised). The fear, of course, is that any such move will lose them votes.
According to a survey carried out for The Sunday Times, whose findings are being published today, about 17 per cent of the population live in such low-rent property, and 12.7 per cent own such property, so any potential loss of votes would be limited. However, this is not a question of votes, but a question of justice.
The Nationalist government elected in 1998 eventually got round to appointing a commission to study rent reform, but nothing was ever concluded. The President's speech at the opening of the new Parliament on May 24 promised that "rent laws will be revised and incentives will be granted for the use of our sizable stock of empty dwellings".
Surely, now that quite a few decades have passed since the rent laws have outlived their purpose, we are ripe for rent reform in all its aspects, not least that of commercial property, where the situation is perhaps even more unjust to landlords. It cannot be denied, for example, that rigid rent control is inhibiting many landlords from upgrading their property, so it is no wonder that certain old property is deteriorating fast.
The Sunday Times survey found, in fact, that an overwhelming majority - 85 per cent - want Government and Opposition to tackle the problem together. We would add that Alternattiva Demokratika, which has consistently, through its chairman, Harry Vassallo, been campaigning for rent reform and the utilisation of vacant property, should also give its important input.
The survey also found that 83 per cent believe that rent should reflect the true value of the property, although a majority agree that tenants who cannot afford to pay realistic rents should be subsidised.
Government, and indeed, all political forces in the country, should realise what a huge amount of property could be released on the market if rents were to be liberalised. To begin with, the very existence of so much property (thousands of properties are kept vacant because landlords are most reluctant to rent them out, for various reasons, including the fear of never being able to get their money's worth if they decide to sell) would ensure competition in the rental market.
Besides, pressure would ease on engaged couples to build their own homes and enter into mortgages which in several cases they find crippling. More realistic rents would encourage tenants of old properties to buy them from the owners at reasonable prices - here again, schemes are already in place for helping tenants to buy their own homes. These schemes should be strengthened.
As a first measure, of course, as Dr Vassallo wrote in this very paper last Sunday, Government could already remove, "with the stroke of a pen", one very unfair feature of the iniquitous rent laws: the automatic right of someone living with a tenant of low-rent property to inherit the tenancy at the same rent. It is, after all, a matter of justice.